54 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



their flesh swells in boiling, and is superior in flavour 

 to that of swine fattened on beans, which shrinks, 

 moreover, in the boiling. The estimated quantity 

 for the consumption of a hog in good condition when 

 put up to fatten, was about six or seven Winchester 

 bushels of peas : each bushel increasing his weight 

 after the rate of nine or ten pounds ; so that when 

 the animal is finished off, he will weigh some twenty- 

 score. Quoth Tusser on this head in concert : 



"Fat pease fed swine, 

 For drover is fine." 



If you have the opportunity there are sweepings of 

 rice, linseed, &c, as well as an occasional damaged 

 corn cargo, to be bought at remunerative prices at 

 the seaport towns, London, Bristol, Liverpool, &c. 

 For these chances, however, there is a bright look- 

 out kept by the large pig-feeders, and you must 

 have a friend on the spot if your residence be, as is 

 likely, at some distance in the country. Egyptian 

 beans and Indian meal form a good, and compara- 

 tively cheap, element for mixture in your slop vat, 

 yet all inferior, and perhaps dearer than the royal 

 food, unmistakeably effective, anyhow, as I have 

 found it on trial of the magician Thorley. In a dis- 

 quisition on pork, which I found, myself, interesting 

 and instructive, Mr. Mowbray, giving his results of 

 forty years' practical experience, wrote: "Milk-fed 

 pork is superior to any other description, not only in 

 delicacy of flavour, but in substance and weight, 

 none weighing so heavy in proportion as the milk- 

 fed animal. Hence the bacon of the dairy counties 



